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239 Comments
- Stevanoski, on 07/16/2009, -33/+70Hmmm, so the science isn't settled yet? You would never know that from the greenfryes of the world. Get ready for an onslaught of long, boring posts from cherry picked sites that will prove nothing.
- inactive, on 07/17/2009, -17/+27The idiots are out in force tonight.
- nirvanix, on 07/17/2009, -5/+14As a scientist I don't mind admitting: we almost always get it wrong. That's ok, it's part of the learning process. We do get it eventually. In the mean time I think that coughing up billions in carbon taxes to Gore is just a bad idea.
- MistrBrownstone, on 07/17/2009, -5/+13These comments suck.
- AgeofMastery, on 07/17/2009, -5/+13No, lying is Ron Paul's job.
- uzytkownik, on 07/18/2009, -1/+9I consider myself rather as sceptic but - please - at least know what you are writing about.
Consider that Earth was made as a completly black body with no reflexion orbiting the convinient nuclear fusion reactor (known also as Sun). Radiation from Sun hits the Earth and heats it. However heated body emits energy - the warmer the more energy is emitted. At some temperature there is an equilibrium - the energy emitted is equal to energy absorbed.
However Earth is not a black body (please note that black body is not about color) and is not homogenious. Some elements in atmosphere (for example CO2) are transparent for more energetic radiation (such as from sun) while stopping radiation in infrared hence changing the equilibrum temperature.
We have much more variables so it is not so simple - but I would not consider this calculation valid. - paidhima, on 07/17/2009, -3/+10Firstly, just saying it doesn't make it true. Natural processes produce approximately 440 gigatons of CO2 gas per year, which is kept in check by natural CO2 sinks, such as plant life. While human production of CO2 is fairly small compared to the entirety of nature, that production imbalances the system, creating more CO2 than is consumed. A relatively small imbalance taken over the course of long periods of time can have a major effect.
Imagine this: in a room, place two objects - a humidifier and a dehumidifier. Set them so that the dehumidifier removes as much air moisture as the humidifier creates. Seal the room and come back in an hour. The room should not feel any more humid than before, as the producer and consumer of moisture are in equilibrium. You could come back ten years from now and it would still be the same, given 100% functionality of the humidifier and dehumidifier. Now place a much smaller second humidifier in the room. Turn it on, seal the room, and come back in an hour. You probably won't notice much of a difference, if at all. There is an imbalance - more moisture is entering the room's air than is being taken out of it, but the addition is small enough over a short enough time that you can't really tell. Seal the room again and come back - this time ten years later. The room will be soaking wet. A small imbalance over a long enough time period causes a major change.
We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. There's a lot we know about CO2. For example, we know that CO2 concentration within the atmosphere and ocean is a lagging indicator of global climate change. This is because, as the climate within our system (that includes our oceans, surface and multiple levels of atmosphere) trends toward warming the ocean can't absorb as much CO2. Due to this decreased CO2 absorption an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere can be measured. As the level of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, it takes on a greenhouse effect - warming the atmosphere and oceans. This develops, over a long period of time, into a feedback cycle.
Ok, so there you go: Earth warms naturally, CO2 builds up naturally, Earth warms naturally, etc. Not man-made!
The problem is that CO2 is not only a lagging indicator, but lagging by upwards of a thousand years. In other words, this feedback cycle takes hundreds of years to take hold. Studies on, for example, ice core samples do not show such a build-up over the past millenium or so. Only since the industrial revolution have such increases in atmospheric CO2 levels been demonstrated over time.
You mention volcanoes. That's a good point. A volcano eruption can spew many gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere at once. We've had a number of major eruptions over the past century, so that could account for the difference, right?
Wrong. Sudden and short-lived changes in atmospheric gas mixture have little effect over time. As an analogy, look at the El Nino of 1998. A sudden, unusually strong El Nino caused a pronounced shift in ocean currents, leading to the hottest year in more than a decade. This change in surface temperature was short-lived, however, because true climate change requires steady trends over time rather than short bursts. If you look at the amount of CO2 released by volcanic activity and compare it that released by man-made processes and average it over time you would see that volcanic activity actually accounts for a minuscule and inconsequential change in CO2.
Finally, you mention the Triassic period. I'm not sure what your point is, but your math is off. While CO2 atmospheric density in the beginning of the Triassic was about 3x current levels (1000 ppm vs ~380 ppm), density at the end of the Triassic was almost 10x ours. Do you think it's a coincidence that mean surface temperature was also about 3 degrees celsius above current temperatures? 3 degrees may seem a pittance, but it resulted in an Earth much unlike our own. - greenfyre, on 07/17/2009, -23/+29Yeah, my comment was more than a paragraph and had some words with 3 syllables ... past your limits was it?
- ironhide, on 07/17/2009, -10/+16So you missed the very first post in the thread? Oh that's right, you only see what you want to see.
- greenfyre, on 07/17/2009, -18/+24I would never call a "skeptic" a Denier!!! Ever!
Skeptics are intelligent thoughtful people who carefully study the subject and have rational, intelligent, evidence based reasons for their skepticism which they can present and articulate.
Deniers are irrational idealogues who cannot discuss the issue intelligently, and when they offer any "evidence" it is some flaming nonsense scrapped off a wingnut website that they didn't even read properly
http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/denier-vs-skeptic/
which is also why I would never call a Denier a "skeptic" ... that would be deeply insulting to the skeptics. - villainousT, on 07/17/2009, -6/+12I'd rather be safe than sorry. Besides, it wouldn't hurt to be a little more efficient with how we use our resources.
- cmcagle, on 07/17/2009, -9/+15Greenfyre, you are one fantastic eco-troll. You come here and throw the word "Denier" around, as though Anthropogenic Global Warming were some sort of self-evident fact and anyone questioning it is being willfully blind.
I've seen you reprimand other diggers many times, just in the above comments, for not following the links to your little blog. So, I took you up on your "offer;" I went to your blog and looked--in vain--for references to some kind of peer-reviewed journal articles discussing the AGW theory. All I could find were more links to blog posts you authored, various left-wing political websites (dailykostv? climateprogress? seriously?), the opinion pages of online newspapers (guardian.co.uk), and those well-known repositories of all things truthful and fact-checked, wikis (realclimate.org).
So how about this: go to www.joannenova.com.au and look around. Check out The Skeptic's Handbook. Go ahead, I'll wait...
Ok, so now see if you can answer the following questions, without resorting to ad hominems (don't call anyone a Denier or an "industry shill" if you can manage that for one whole post. I know it'll be hard!) or appeals to authority:
Why is there no equatorial "hot spot," as predicted by the pro-AGW computer models?
How do you explain the ice-core evidence which shows that an increase in CO2 levels lagged behind global temperature increases by ~800 years?
Why do orbital satellites (which aren't subject to distortion by pavement, nearby air conditioners, etc.) show that there has been no warming since 2001, despite a rise in CO2 levels? - Semblance, on 07/17/2009, -19/+24This is a poorly written news article. The study is about the rate of change of the Atlantic Ocean current, but the article makes it sound like the study is about the rate of change of climate change itself.
I'm sure wingnuts will not understand this though, because they're so stupid, of course. - greenfyre, on 07/17/2009, -42/+47Interesting ... and how does that square with the OTHER new study that DenierDespot is crowing about that says warming could happen much faster than the models say?
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/a ...
Oh, right ... they're both brand new studies and no one has had time to really look at them ... but of course it is assumed that a single new study is WAY better than thousands and thousands of existing ones because ... because ... because why?
because some people are 5 yrs old and automatically think newer is better? - nirvanix, on 07/17/2009, -4/+9Yep, the infamous ice age of the seventies. They were SO sure!
- bukkwheat, on 07/17/2009, -10/+15RE: "why you discount the vast amount of data we have for warming here"
What evidence?
FACT: The average temperature of the earth has been cooling since 1997.
"All four agencies that track earth's temperature [the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California] report that it cooled by about 0.7 C in 2007." This, he says is "the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over."
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/global_warming_ic ...
Lets do some math: Lets calculate how much energy it would take to change the temperature of the ocean 1 degree
Specific Heat: Q=cmDeltaT
m = 1.37*10^21 kg http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/AvijeetDut.sht ...
c = 4.187 kJ/kgK http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-thermal-pr ...
DeltaT = 1 C
Q = 5.736 x 10^21 KJ
How many KJ in a ton of TNT
4.184 x 10^9 J * 1 KJ/1000 J = 4.184 x 106 KJ / Ton TNT
Therefore, to change the temperature of the ocean 1 degree C, it would require 1.371 x 10^15 tons of TNT
The population of the earth = 6.772 Billion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
Therefore, each person on the earth would have to output the energy equivalent to 202,000 TONS OF TNT to change the temperature of the ocean 1 degree C
Conclusion:
Fact: We are sitting on a gigantic heat sink
Fact: It would require each person on the planet to output 202,000 tons of TNT to change the temperature of the ocean 1 degree C.
Fact: We contribute a very very very very small impact to the global temperature change. The ocean and the sun were designed by our creator God to maintain the temperature of this planet.
FACT: Man made global warming is a Hoax - piper999, on 07/17/2009, -4/+9Hilarious stuff and fascinating to read. According to greenfyre you can't be a real scientist unless you have an encyclopedic knowledge of Al Gore's bulging bank balance.
"and I am still supposed to believe your claim that you have anything at all to do with science?" What an idiot. So pompous and so unnecessarily abusive. - greenfyre, on 07/17/2009, -17/+21Comment thread is linked right there; try searching for 'stevanoski'
- sjbdallas, on 07/17/2009, -23/+27Slow like nature you mean?
- BalancingAct, on 07/17/2009, -22/+25"Here's my thread ... show us where I ever said all elements of the science were settled ..."
Why do you keep on calling people who are skeptical about man made warming "deniers" if you don't believe the science is settled? - TheMoniker, on 07/18/2009, -3/+7So, it would take a large amount of energy to instantaneously raise the temperature of the world's oceans by 1 degree. Sure. But we're not talking about raising the temperature instantaneously.
Keep in mind that we are seeing the warming over a period of more than a century. To see why this makes a difference, I'll see your ridiculously oversimplified math and raise you some.
To begin with, the Earth receives about 1000 W/m^2 from the sun (about 1368 W/m^2 is incident upon the Earth, but not all of that reaches the surface; this number is found from taking the solar constant at 1 AU). Now, the area of the Earth that receives this light can be approximated as a circle of radius 6.4 × 10^6 meters. The area of a circle is given by πr^2, which gives us an area here of ~ 1.29 × 10^14 m^2. So, multiplying this out we get (1.29 × 10^14 m^2)(1368 W/m^2) = 1.76 × 10^17 W. So, roughly 1.76 × 10^17 Joules of energy strike the Earth's surface every second. If all of this energy were being absorbed, we'd see an increase in the ocean's temperature of 1 degree within about a year: (5.736 ×10^24 J)/(1.76 10^17 J/s) = 3.26 × 10^7 s, which is approximately 1.03 years. Of course, we are not absorbing all of the energy from the sun, but it's also taken over a century for us to increase the overall ocean's temperature by less than a degree.
So, given the timescale over which the change is occurring and the vast amount of energy incident upon Earth's surface every day, it is entirely reasonable that the greenhouse effect can account for the warming of the Earth. At the most, all your calculation shows is that the ocean stores a great deal of heat, which it does; but, just because the amount of energy required to heat the ocean is quite large doesn't mean that anthropogenic global warming is absurd. Of course the number is large compared to humans blowing up dynamite. We're talking about receiving energy from a nuclear furnace, comprising more than 99% of the mass of the solar system, across the face of the planet! - bcronos, on 07/17/2009, -4/+8“But there is no verifiable scientific basis whatever to assert this warming is caused by human-produced greenhouse gasses because current physical theory is too grossly inadequate to establish any cause at all.” - Chemist Dr. Patrick Frank, who has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles.
“Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” - Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.
“The conclusion, Dickens said, is that something other than carbon dioxide caused much of the heating during the PETM. “Some feedback loop or other processes that aren’t accounted for in these models — the same ones used by the IPCC for current best estimates of 21st Century warming — caused a substantial portion of the warming that occurred during the PETM.” “This discrepancy indicates very clearly that the correlation programmed today into our computer models is fundamentally flawed, and that the relationship between carbon and temperature is not as close or solid as is currently believed.”
“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense. The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.” - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.
...and on and on and on ad nauseum - nirvanix, on 07/17/2009, -4/+8A credible source? I'm making that statement based on twenty years of doing hard science. You're obviously one of those people that turns on the television and when they hear 'Scientists say...' they believe them. I don't. Getting funding requires making claims that often turn out to be incorrect. 30 years ago nutritional scientists were in agreement that hyrogented vegetable oil was good for you, healthier than butter. Now we call it trans-fat and realize that it causes obesity and cancer. How could so many scientists be wrong? Easy.
- nirvanix, on 07/17/2009, -3/+7Hey, stop making sense!!!
- greenfyre, on 07/17/2009, -12/+16Swanson and Tsonis ? they were always capitalized
- 4AntiStupid, on 07/17/2009, -3/+7More like "slower than socialist try to sell it." You can't convince people to give up their freedom unless there's a immediate crisis panic.
- Reebee52, on 07/17/2009, -2/+6But nobody uses TNT anymore...
Curse your mathematic voodoo. - nirvanix, on 07/17/2009, -7/+11Your reply isn't much more enlightening. I'm a physicist and I can safely say that about all we do know about gravity is that it's an attracting force related to mass. The rest of it is still a mystery. Climate science is very complicated and I don't think anyone should be demanding billions of dollars in carbon taxes from anyone.
- liquisoft, on 07/17/2009, -12/+16Just because it's happening more slowly than some thought, doesn't mean it's not happening.
Let's not rest on our laurels under the assumption that we don't need to do anything. There is still a lot to do to get our industrialized world working more efficiently with less pollution. It's not even about the world, it's about humanity. If we ***** this place up, we won't have anywhere to live. - greenfyre, on 07/17/2009, -8/+12So show us what is wrong with the science
How does this square with the work of Earth System Modelling Group
http://researchpages.net/ESMG/people/tim-lenton/ti ...
and what we know about the PETM?
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/new-i ...
What about Zeebs et al new paper?
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/a ... - paidhima, on 07/17/2009, -0/+4@Prophetic:
Um... I'm not sure where you're going with that point, but I don't think you understand what I was trying to say.
@litsgt:
"THERE ARE SIMPLY TOO MANY VARIABLES. any grade school scientist knows that you cant measure something when so many things are affecting the outcome."
A good attempt at a bare assertion that leads to a poor case of false equivalency. You would be correct if scientists were trying to measure the entirety of climate change as one single phenomena. Fortunately, that's not what scientists are doing. This is why there are so many studies on trends in various factors, such as CO2 levels (just as an example). They're not trying to measure something in spite of many variables. They're measuring the actual variables and using those trends to formulate theories. - greenfyre, on 07/17/2009, -5/+9@Gunther42
i) how about you look at what I actually posted before pretending to address it? thank you.
ii) uniformed speculation on factors well accounted for in the actual science are no basis for "skepticism"
Pls be so good as to inform yourself first
http://cce.890m.com/
thank you - VitriolAndAngst, on 07/17/2009, -2/+5I thought I did a great job of answering each and every point that GreenFyre brought up.
And the HUGE difference, is my facts are actually supported by scientists, rather than a half a doze shills making the Exxon lecture circuit.
And if we sample the trends daily -- today was cooler than yesterday by ten degrees where I live. So obviously in a month we are all going to freeze to death. - abooboojubee, on 07/17/2009, -6/+9WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR ***** BLOG.
- VitriolAndAngst, on 07/17/2009, -1/+4""the military makes two billion"
How stupid does a liberal have to get in order to believe that our military operates for a profit?
"
>> I don't know, why don't you ask Dight D. Eisenhower? He first coined the phrase; "Military Industrial Complex."
You see, when the military needs a grenade, or a B-22 Stealth Bomber -- some company like Lockheed gets the contract. When friends help friends -- they make money.
Why the Hell do we still have so many troops in Germany? Because there is a little economy that gets created and people who make decisions get benefits from keeping these going. The military keeps spending more of our money -- and making more friends.
You are a big boy, work it out. Notice all the cost-plus spending in Iraq leaving trucks behind when they run out of gas, or taking millions and giving the troops sewer water. - TheMoniker, on 07/17/2009, -6/+9Are you being sarcastic? That "ice age" scare was almost entirely in popular magazines, not in the scientific literature. Even then, the majority of papers were predicting warming. See here for a review of the literature: http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf
- nirvanix, on 07/17/2009, -4/+7Beautifully said Badfish. Your intellect is refreshing.
- litsgt, on 07/17/2009, -5/+8like your "credible" sources right.
- bhamfree, on 07/18/2009, -4/+7I looked up your first "fact" about "The average temperature of the earth has been cooling since 1997."
I followed your newsmax link and it took very little effort to realize your claim is totally full of *****. I assume that the rest of your post is equally wrong. - iizh, on 07/17/2009, -12/+15Shhh! How is Obama supposed to destroy millions of jobs with climate alarmism if you scientists don't shut up? Play along with The Messiah (Peace Be Upon Him) please.
- wrathchilde, on 07/21/2009, -2/+5Dude, I would be glad to share with you my sources of information. My specialty is how CO2 affects the surface ocean, and how underwater volcanoes affect global oceanic material cycles.
I was only picking on you for claiming to be a NASA engineer. You would not be the only one on Digg, and you can find another in my friends list. If you were legit, I would add you to my list.
You made a tactical mistake by trying to claim that your opinion is bolstered by your credentials. A search of "your name in quotes" +NASA has three hits, two of which are listed in my earlier comments.
Perhaps it was invasive, but it was meant to demonstrate to you the seriousness of exposing yourself online. I would not do so. I am super easy to find.
A search of my name turns up letters criticizing NPR journalists, for example, as well as science.
Peace, Brother. If you do make it in to NASA, and I wish you all the luck you deserve, remember my advice. - litsgt, on 07/17/2009, -4/+7/clap
thank you sir. - wrathchilde, on 07/20/2009, -2/+5Stu, I'm "sorry" if you are offended that I bothered to check to see if you are actually an "Engineer working at NASA" and discovered that you are not. Claiming to be so is insulting, and detracts from your assertions, rather than adds. If you are found to be falsifying evidence in one aspect of your thesis, nothing you publish will ever be accepted.
Oh, and your review of "Rocket Boys", you know where you comment about the boy dreaming to beome a NASA Engineer, riveting: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A3HRO09 ...
As an actual scientist I have learned to investigate. - greenfyre, on 07/17/2009, -6/+9To detect climate trends requires a minimum 30 yr data sequence
How to decide climate trends
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2008/12/ho ...
Results on deciding trends
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2009/01/re ...
otherwise all you are looking at is short term fluctuations in weather.
Debunking the "It stopped warming in 1998" fable
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y15UGhhRd6M
Myth: Global Warming Stopped in 1998
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOnuPbNynZE
Has global warming really stopped?
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscienc ...
Yes, Global Warming is Real and it's Still Happening
http://www.desmogblog.com/debunking-joanne-nova-cl ...
Earth to Jacoby: I Got Your Global Warming Right Here
http://www.desmogblog.com/earth-jacoby-i-got-your- ...
FACT every new record hot year is followed by a slightly cooler period. That's been going on for 50 yrs and the only ones who are surprised by it are the Deniers:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.lrg ... - greenfyre, on 07/17/2009, -3/+6Thank you, now can we get back to talking about the facts?
http://cce.890m.com/
Myth 'Natural emissions dwarf human emissions http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/17/233610 ...
How much of the recent CO2 increase is due to human activities? http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005 ...
Science Reinforces Human Role as Climate Change Impacts Accelerate
http://www.wri.org/press/2009/07/science-reinforce ...
The Human Hand in Climate Change http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007 ...
Understanding Why Climate Change is Human-Induced:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-goldstein/under ...
Attribution of 20th Century climate change to CO2 http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 ...
Humans cause climate change, US body accepts http://environment.newscientist.com/article/mg1992 ... - litsgt, on 07/17/2009, -8/+11huffington post is ALL *****, and i still see no hard evidence or graphs comparing output.
its not like i drive a hummer and club baby seals for godsake. im not all for cutting up trees, i just dont see anyone even being able to predict AN ENTIRE CLIMATE. i feel the same way about the economy, no one can predict it. there are too many factors in both. - xexx, on 07/17/2009, -4/+7It's so funny because ManBearPig is only like one third man and is still twice the man Betrayal is.
- litsgt, on 07/17/2009, -5/+7thats the whole point YOU HAVE NO FACTS. i can find youtube videos and wiki articles that prove inter dimensional lizard men are taking over the government, doesnt mean its true.
- BalancingAct, on 07/17/2009, -9/+11"why do you even try to pretend literacy?"
You should really ask yourself that. Nowhere does it imply that it is fact. Notice that there are many theories, but no facts. In other words, inconclusive.
You should definitely buy yourself a dictionary.
Anyway, back to the question. What are "deniers" denying that skeptics aren't that has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt? - nirvanix, on 07/17/2009, -4/+6It's worse than that. Greenfyre is not even making sense, don't you think?
Apparently he can't read either or he would know that two years before he went on his climate rampage Gore set up Generation Investment Management with some Wall Street executives to manage the whole carbon tax scheme. He got a staggering 5 BILLION dollars of investment capital which is pretty much unheard of. A lot of that capital came from the oil companies. What a joke. -
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